Steven Gerrard on Thursday night said England expected to beat Sweden in
Friday’s Euro 2012 Group D match because their opponents were not as a good
a team as France.

It was an attempt at radiating positivity — but it also inadvertently fuelled the charge of arrogance laid at England’s door by Swedish midfielder Anders Svensson.

“With all due respect to Sweden, they are not France,” England’s captain maintained. “I can’t say that Sweden are a similar standard because you know yourselves that they’re not. That means the whole team can be slightly more ambitious and attack more and take slightly more risks.

“Maybe you will see a better performance going forward as a team – but what is more important is that the team are solid and together I think we can be more bold and attacking and get at the Swedes. We are confident that if we reach the same level of performance [as against France] it will lead to a victory.”

Despite Gerrard’s qualification that he was striking a bold note, while at the same time respecting the Swedes, it also undoubtedly provided further evidence to Svensson’s argument. “I don’t think England have the same respect for us as they do France, Brazil,” he said.

Given their resources, ranking and players England would expect to be able to gather the three points against the Swedes, perennial tournament qualifiers but a team in gradual decline, which would give them a significant chance of progressing to the quarter-finals after last Monday’s draw against the French in Donetsk.

However, England failed to beat Sweden in 12 matches, spanning 43 years between 1968 until 2011 — when Fabio Capello’s side earned a tepid friendly victory — and their opponents know they have to avoid defeat and gain a win of their own to try to reach the last eight after losing their first group game against Ukraine.

“Credit to Sweden,” Gerrard said. “They never give up, they fight to the end. That’s one of the big positives they’ve got. Hopefully that will be different tomorrow. We’re very confident we can beat them.”

That confidence is partly born of observation. “We’ve watched tapes of Sweden and we’ve seen their weaknesses and I think we’ve got the players to exploit those weaknesses,” Gerrard added, amid strong suggestions that Andy Carroll will be paired with Danny Welbeck in attack.

“In the last five or six games they have conceded quite a few goals from crosses so it’s an area we will try to concentrate on and we have some wonderful crossers of a ball in our squad. But there are other areas as well.

“We were happy with the reaction from the first game with everyone saying how strong and how committed we are, how together we look and these are some of the characteristics you need as a team to do well in these tournaments. I’m sure we will get better in possession and create more as we go along.”

Gerrard’s own disciplined contribution in the centre of midfield is crucial to England’s hopes. He is certainly growing into the role of being captain, and feels more comfortable, and has accepted that he has to curb some of his instincts to contribute to the team ethic allied to the traditional commodities of “heart and desire”.

The 32 year-old continued: “It was a big game for us against France. It was so important that we didn’t get beaten and we’ve left ourselves in a good position. We can’t afford to lower the standard we’ve set and if we can add to the performance against France then I think we can do well.”

Gerrard, with Scott Parker alongside him, appeared to run himself to exhaustion in the stifling heat of Donetsk and manager Roy Hodgson is aware that he has to be careful he handles the two thirtysomethings carefully after injury ruled out Frank Lampard, Gareth Barry and Jack Wilshere.

England are short of cover while Gerrard is nursing a long-standing back complaint and Parker, who was substituted against France, is still returning to full fitness after an Achilles problem.

Unsurprisingly, Gerrard brushed aside such concerns although the England management is acutely aware that the final group match against Ukraine next Tuesday will be their third game in eight days. “I didn’t find the conditions were too bad in the first game,’ Gerrard said.

“Everyone was talking about how hot it was going to be and that we’d struggle but I thought all the lads performed well.”